DRESS

The dress one can wear when pistol shooting is limited to what the company present is wearing at the time.

The ideal dress on a warm day would be that of a rowing man with the addition of a sombrero and nailed shoes, but of course this is inadmissible.

The absolute essentials are to have the right arm, shoulder, and neck free, and a firm grip of the ground with the feet.

A soft front shirt is not so necessary in pistol shooting as in rifle or shotgun shooting.

With the two latter the stock does not get properly imbedded into the shoulder when wearing a stiff shirt, but in pistol shooting as long as the neck and right shoulder are not interfered with, a stiff shirt does not hamper.

Moderately tight clothes, if the right shoulder is free (sleeves cut well out underneath), help to keep the body rigid.

An overcoat is inadvisable. The sleeve not only hampers the movement of the right arm but its weight on the outstretched arm is a great handicap.An Inverness cape, even if thrown or buttoned back, is also inadmissible; it hampers the right shoulder.

As having the body rather tightly buttoned up is an advantage, a tight fitting frock coat is permissible. It is better buttoned than open as otherwise the skirts are in the way.

A lamb’s wool vest, or a second waistcoat may be worn when shooting out-of-doors in cold weather. I prefer a thin leather Swedish sleeveless waistcoat under my coat instead of the usual waistcoat.

In wearing the leather waistcoat it need not show. The coat can be buttoned over it.

There is a shooting coat, I believe the invention of the late Mr. Cholmondely Pennell, which has a waistcoat of thick material to wear over, instead of under, a thin coat. This keeps the body warm whilst the arms are light and free.

Boots or shoes with corrugated rubber soles or nailed boots should be worn if the ground is heavy, wet, or slippery.

As nailed or rubber soled boots cannot be worn when in formal dress it is best to make sure of your foothold when wearing ordinary boots or shoes. The heel can be stamped into the ground a few times to get a firm stand or the soles rubbed on gritty sand.

Out-of-doors it is best to wear a hat, as one can see much better when the eyes are shaded. Have a hat that holds well on your head.Do not wear the hats made of hard straw with low crowns and narrow brims. They fly off at the least provocation and the mere fact of your hat feeling like a partridge who is on tiptoes about to take wing will upset you and spoil your shooting.

I took a man who had never been to a shooting range before to see the finish for the King’s Prize at Bisley.

There was a puffy breeze blowing up the range.

He was wearing one of these hard flat straw hats with his college ribbon on it.

I told him he had better be careful that his hat did not blow off and interfere with the shooting.

We stood behind the two men who had tied for the Gold Medal, and were shooting off the tie.

He had just begun to say “my hat never blows off,”—when his hat soared off his head like a clay pigeon out of a trap, and landed just in front of the man who was aiming. My companion was a “hat worshipper,” one to whom his hat is everything. They hold it on when on a runaway horse. If it blows off they will dive under a train in motion after it, or do things to save their hat which would gain them the Victoria Cross in battle.

He at once started to jump over the prone shooter after the hat, but I held him back. All interest in the match was gone, he had eyes only to watch his hat.

I finally got him a little calmer by explaining that though the shooters were most probably wishing the hat in a place where straw would soon kindle, they would not shoot through his hat (I am not talking thus, only slightly exaggerating).

Men who worship their hats do not like trotters because they splash them.

There was one of the rare winters in England when one could get a few days’ sleigh driving.

A man had long worried me to let him take some photographs of my trotters in a sleigh. I telegraphed him to come at once and I would take him out in a sleigh and he could take snow photos.

I met him at the station with a pair of trotters, both able to trot below 2:18, hitched to a light two-man cutter sleigh.

He was delighted, got tucked in beside me with his camera and said he would take one or two photos of the horses from where he sat.

I told him not to begin before we got clear of the town, on to the big open straight road.

Now some men will go out in a cranky boat, or rush a motor car round a corner through a crowd of children without a tremor, but are frightened to death of a trotter, especially a keen one who takes hold.

Now my mares had often raced against each other and when together as a pair had racing in their minds.

They were fresh, the day cold, there had been a thaw and then a frost; the road was just right and the horses shod with new steel spikes, sharp as chisels.I let them step along, the snow came back in a shower of balls on us, varied by a sharp sliver of ice, which cut like a knife. The horses and I were enjoying ourselves, and then I remembered my companion.

I called out “Take them now,” as the mares were squaring away racing against each other.

I only heard, “Wow—Oh” as each snowball hit him. Fortunately he was holding on to his “sacred” hat with one hand and to the side of the sleigh with the other, so he had no hand to spare to snatch a rein to upset the sleigh, he was only able to groan, “Stop, Stop!”

He scrambled out and took the photos from the safety of the side of the road, and said he preferred to walk back to the station, and the last I saw of him was with his camera in one hand holding on his sacred (in the French meaning of the word) hat with the other.